Great white what did you say?

I first laid eyes on Lono in a dockside dive, an immense Pacific Islander sporting an impressive tat collection. He was nursing his beer perched atop a barstool like a rhino balanced on a stork’s leg. As it happened, he was generous in both conversation and rounds. And we had come to the dock for the same purpose, seeking work.

Lono knew a guy who knew a guy, and we soon arrived on the deck of a multi-masted sailing vessel with employment paperwork in our hands. We turned to see the peg-legged captain of the vessel thumping in our direction, hefting a harpoon.

“Good luck to you, Lono.” I hurried back down the gangway and got off that ship. “But I’ve totally read this book.”

125 words. Inspired by this week’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt:

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Unchosen

My delicious frozen dinner doesn’t invoke much enthusiasm, but it breaks up the monotony. On the view screen, as usual, is a display of the nearby stars, lost against the backdrop of the Milky Way. Helpful icons feature range and closing data for the nearest ten. The numbers aren’t exactly scrolling by. Most shifts, you consider yourself lucky if a single digit changes.

I’m in a bussard ramjet. It’s blasting out of the local arm at a steady 0.08 G in the general direction of 3 Sagittarii, toward galactic center. Our current speed is just about 0.8C, still slowly climbing but ultimately limited to 1.0.

In the cargo bay is my frozen wife and daughter, and an enormous stock of frozen seeds and embryos. They saved everything they could, but I don’t know if we’ll ever arrive anywhere livable. The computer still hasn’t selected a specific target; it hasn’t scanned any promising “possible habitables” yet, if it ever does. I need to get back in the freezer. The system only awakens me every dozen years for status checks.

It was magnanimous of the invaders to let a few of us go. It just sucks to be among the refugees.

199 words. Inspired by this week’s Picture It & Write prompt: